Chapter 11
The body lay facedown in a shallow, rocky pool, but my money wasn't on drowning as the cause of death.
'Michael,' I yelled. 'Could you come up here a second?'
I stood looking down the slope at the tidal pool where the body floated. I was shivering, from nerves as much as the cold rain, as Michael scrambled out to the cliff's edge and stood beside me.
'Meg, maybe we should just go back to the house,' he said, his voice raised to be heard over the wind and surf. 'Your father's probably back there by now; I'm sure he was only kidding about wanting to stand on Green Point and watch the hurricane hit the island.'
'I'm sure he wasn't, but never mind that now,' I said. 'Look down there.'
'Oh my God,' Michael said. He tried to pull me away so I couldn't see the body. 'It's not him, is it?'
'You mean Dad? Heavens no! Look at all that hair.'
'You're right,' Michael said. 'Sorry. I panicked for a second. So who is he?'
'I think it's Resnick.'
Michael craned his head to look at the body from another angle.
'I think you're right. Well, that's a relief, for us at least.'
'Not much of a relief, considering he was almost certainly murdered.'
'Murdered! What makes you think that? I mean, why not drowned?'
'Look at that gash on the back of his head.'
Michael peered through the rain.
'Oh,' he said. 'Not so much of a relief after all, I suppose; and before you say anything, I only meant a relief because it wasn't your dad. I didn't mean I was glad Resnick was dead or anything like that.'
'Although I have a feeling a lot of people will be, even if they don't admit it.'
We just stood there for a moment, staring at the body.
'We'd better go and tell somebody,' Michael said. 'The helpful Constable Barnes, I suppose.'
'We'd better haul the body up first,' I said with a shudder.
'We can't; we'd be disturbing a crime scene,' Michael protested.
'I think the storm's going to do more than disturb the crime scene by the time we could get down to the village, much less bring anyone back. If we don't haul him up, he's going to wash out to sea.'
As if to emphasize my point, the crest of a particularly big wave washed over the rocks into the tidal pool. The body rocked slightly, and the right arm moved back and forth, as if Resnick were waving to us.
'See, the tide's rising,' I said. 'We'd better hurry.'
'Right,' Michael said. He took a deep breath and then began easing himself over the side of the ledge, feeling for a foothold on the rocky slope.
'I'm sorry,' I said.
'Not your fault,' he replied, looking up with a reassuring smile.
'Yes, it is,' I said. 'I got us into this. Coming here was my idea. Some romantic getaway.'
'Well, you never promised me a tropical paradise.'
He gave me a hand over the edge of the cliff, and I began carefully following him down the slope. It wasn't all that steep; if there had been solid ground at the bottom, I'd have just slid and slithered down in a hurry. But considering what waited below--a dead body and a rapidly rising ocean--I very definitely didn't want to lose my footing.
'Getting him up again is going to be a real headache,' Michael said, looking around. 'I don't suppose there's another way back.'
'There's a path that goes back toward Resnick's house,' I said. 'But I don't think the tide's low enough.'
'You're sure?' Michael said. 'Where is it? Maybe we can pick a time between waves.'
I pointed to the narrow path hugging the side of the cliff. As we studied it, a wave sloshed over the path, stranding a wire-mesh lobster trap. A few seconds later, a larger wave broke over the path, crushing the trap against the side of the cliff and sucking the fragments back as it retreated.
'Okay, I guess the cliff's it,' Michael said. He looked up at the cliff, frowning, and then back at the body. Water sloshed over our feet.
'Hang on a second,' I said, pulling the knapsack off my shoulders. 'I never thought I'd give Dad the satisfaction of hearing this, but for once this damned hiking emergency kit of his will come in handy.'
I dug through the contents of the pack, passing up a hefty first-aid kit, a large bottle of SP35 sunscreen, plastic bottles of water and Gatorade, several packages of freeze-dried food, and a flare gun that probably dated from the Korean War. Sure enough, there at the bottom of the pack I found a long length of slender nylon rope.
'We can tie this to him and haul him up,' I said. 'There should be another rope in your pack, if we need it.'
'He'll get a little battered,' Michael observed.
'I think he's past caring.'
'Yes, but it will complicate the autopsy, won't it?'
'Good point. We can hoist him up over there,' I said, pointing a little to the right, where the cliff overhung the beginning of the submerged path. 'We can keep him away from the cliff until the very top.'
'I'll bundle him up,' Michael said, taking off his parka and spreading it out on the rocks. 'You find something up there to tie the other end of the rope to.'
'Right,' I said. But before I started scrambling back up the slope, I paused, took a breath, and tried to look around very methodically and fix the scene in my mind.
In the sunlight, the rocky shoreline would have looked ragged and picturesque, but in the gloomy half-light, I could think only what a bleak and cheerless place it was to die all alone.
Well, not quite all alone. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the sudden bright flash as a beam of sunlight broke through the clouds and reflected off the lenses of a pair of binoculars. Somewhere, farther up the slope, birders were watching. I only hoped they had been watching long enough to see that Resnick had been dead when we found him. Awkward if they'd only seen us messing around with a dead body.
'Meg? Is something wrong?'
'No,' I said. 'Just looking around to see if there's anything unusual we should report to the police. I mean, you're probably right about this being a crime scene. Want me to help you pull him out?'
'It's okay,' Michael said. 'I can manage.'
He didn't sound too happy about it, but if he wanted to play strong, protective male, I didn't plan to argue. It was one thing to talk about corpses and autopsies around the dinner table when Dad went off on one of his true- crime tangents and quite another to haul a body out of the briny deep.
Michael frowned down at the corpse.
'Michael, I'm--' I stopped myself. He looked up and raised an eyebrow. I couldn't help smiling; I loved the way he did that.
'Having promised that I wouldn't apologize for anything that went wrong,' I said, 'I'm trying very hard to think of anything else to say right now.'
He chuckled.
'I was just thinking what great research material this is for my acting,' he said. 'I had a part in a TV show once where I had to discover a murder victim. Had a tough time making it authentic, given the fact I'd never even seen a dead body. But since I've met you, I've seen more stiffs than a mafioso in training.'
'Is that a good thing?' I asked.
'Well, it's useful.'
With that, he bent down and began pulling at Resnick's body. I coiled the rope over my shoulder, replaced the
